Diocese of Chichester

‘The eyes of all the synagogue were fixed on him.’

Origen, that wonderful, sometimes misrepresented, 3^rd century Alexandrian Biblical preacher, says this: ‘I wish that the eyes of all…would gaze upon Jesus.When you look to him, your faces will be shining from the light of his gaze. You will be able to say, “The Light of your face, Lord, has made its mark upon us”.’

When it comes to preaching, we can be tempted to focus not on Jesus but on pressing social and political issues, with the result that we simply end up in a dreary echo-chamber, sounding like everyone else. Speaking at a conference recently I was told quite bluntly that clergy today sound no different from a leading editorial in the Guardian newspaper. It was tempting to ask whether sounding like the editorial in The Sun or a different broadsheet, or magazine, might have been more acceptable.

But the eyes in the synagogue were fixed on Jesus, and, as Origen reminds us, that’s where we should also find the inspiration and the intelligence for what we say and do in response to the injustices we see all around us. I urge you to speak of Jesus in your preaching and in your pastoral encounters, in your school visits, your PCCs and your meetings with other public figures.And to speak of him in simple and direct ways that indicate you know him and you love him; you worship him and you stand in fear before him, for he is our brother, our judge and our redeemer.Do not undersell the remarkable mystery of Jesus Christ, God and man.

And the desire for hearing something profound does exist.In a novel, entitled, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, by Jon McGreggor, a dad says this to his daughter: ‘There are remarkable things all the time, right in front of us, but our eyes have like the clouds over the sun and our lives are paler and poorer if we do not see them for what they are…if nobody speak of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable?’

Naming remarkable things ‘puts them into the air’ and makes them visible.We gaze upon Jesus, in the scriptures (hidden in the Old Testament, explicit in the New), in the sacraments, and in multiple descriptions and representations of him in the devotional environment of prayer and silence.And so we must speak definitively and authentically of him, and ‘put him into the air’.

I was moved recently by Archbishop Justin Welby describing the experience of what he said at his mother’s death. It reminded me of visiting a member of my own family who was close to death.

This was someone I had found it difficult to understand, but now I needed to speak of Jesus, to speak for Jesus.To say ‘Come to me, all you who labour’; to say, ‘You are my friend’; to say, ‘Ask and you will receive’; to say, ‘Come, you that are blessed…inherit the kingdom prepared for you’; to say, ‘Thank you for what you did to the least, and what you did for me’. These words had to be conveyed not simply as a string of scriptural quotations, but as though Jesus himself were present in the silence between the lines of the gospel text: in eye contact that reveals our true selves, in the warmth of human touch, in the body language that articulates the authority of compassion and love.

The task of speaking of Jesus and for Jesus must be central to your intentions as you renew your ordination commitment. This task is a remarkable thing, even though it is obscure to many in today’s society. Do not allow that to cloud your vision.You will only be able to speak of and for Jesus if your eyes are fixed on him and if you are confident, diligent, and humble in the exercise of the authority he has given to you for this great work of grace.

There is no doubt that when Origen speaks of how the Light of Jesus makes its mark upon us, he is referring to the impact of Christian worship which used texts from Alexandria and the early Christian East that still feature in authorised worship today, such as the saying of the Creed in the Eucharist, which we shall be thinking more about next year, the Year of Faith.

It is my prayer that the renewal of your ordination commitment will bear fruit in a revitalisation of divine worship that is entrusted to your stewardship as the source and centre of your pastoral engagement and evangelistic teaching.

But we also need to fix our attention on Jesus as we encounter him speaking to us through other people.

I heard the voice of Jesus the Good Shepherd in the ministry of the local priest who came to visit that member of my family who was close to death. The oils that are to be entrusted to you are given for this very purpose.The oil of baptism indicates the power of the cross to overcome evil, and the oil of Chrism marks out our dignity and destiny as participants in the life of Christ who is prophet, priest and king. These oils define Christian character.

But the oil of the sick is the oil of comfort and hope. In every moment of suffering and fear, and as we approach death, this oil is the balm that soothes our troubled hearts.Use it with care, use it well, and use it generously. Let its gentle presence characterise the authority of your ministry as you strengthen the fragility of the sick and prepare the dying for their final witness to Jesus Christ in this life, and their meeting with him in the life to come.

The priest who ministered to the dying member of my family, ministered also to me.It is often difficult for us to be the recipients of a work that we are more familiar undertaking ourselves.But perhaps we learn to be more effective in these aspects of ordained ministry when we have also been the recipient of them.I was not anointed at the bedside.But there is no doubt that the healing of relationships, of time and understanding, was also part of the application of holy oil at that moment.

Of course, this experience of ministering to others and being the recipient of that same ministry should be familiar to any priest who hears confessions. It is essential that every priest confessor also kneels as a penitent to seek, through true repentance and amendment of life, that unction of forgiveness that Jesus committed to his Church. If you are unfamiliar with his form of being anointed with forgiveness when one ordained person ministers to another, I encourage you to explore the possibility of using this ordinance.It touches directly on your baptismal commitment, ‘I turn to Christ’ and on your response to the Lord’s command: ‘Feed my sheep’.

I hope, dear brothers and sisters, that in this Eucharist you will recognise the presence of Jesus Christ who called you and loves you.You see him in the suffering faces of our war zones, the exhausted faces of those who struggle to make ends meet, and in the anxious faces of our young people.You also hear him in the scriptures and recognise his presence in the breaking of the bread.

Whatever your age, let him now renew the vitality and first love of our ministerial calling as he guides us into a future that will at times disturb and challenge us. And so I close with these words of encouragement from Pope Francis to young missionaries, training in Rome. ‘The Church needs your enthusiasm, your intuition, your faith.We need it!And when you arrive where we have not yet come, may you have the patience to wait for us, as John and Peter waited before the empty tomb’.

Amen to that.May we indeed find each other in that place where the risen Christ comes to meet us and says, ‘Peace be with you’.